I picked Cuba, because, what with their meager resources, it's validation of mattering. It'd almost be an honor to be monitored by them. Plus, you know, interrogations on the Caribbean beach. I'm sure that it's JUST like that.

It's been my assumption that by far the largest purchasers of such info is US companies . . . with the Cuban trade embargo still going on it may not be that easy for them to find a purchaser . . . or my assumption may be incorrect.

Sure, US companies are probably the biggest market for your web search history and the list of stores that you shop at, but the market for information like your credit card number, your checking account number and routing information, and your mother's maiden name is world wide. So the question is are we talking about "3rd party cookies" spying or "malware with keylogger" spying?

I think the smart thing to do would be to allow everyone 100 gigs of cloud storage by the government. No need to spy on people when they upload everything to you. The vast majority would be happy to trade privacy for free storage.

As a 3rd generation American citizen I would rather be spied on by the USA than any other country. Besides, nothing surprising has been revealed about what the NSA was doing, it's all been known for decades. New medium, same old spying. You would have to be under 30 or been sheltered from the nightly news the last 20 years to not know that governement agencies tap into everything from phones to snail mail and all digital variations there of. Kids these days...

I was actually perfectly aware that it was very likely happening. What of it? That doesn't make it okay. No one notable bothers to make the argument that it's surprising; they just say that it's morally wrong and unconstitutional.

Besides, nothing surprising has been revealed about what the NSA was doing, it's all been known for decades. New medium, same old spying.

Do not let anybody tell you that. We didn't know the detailed picture of what is happening today. We didn't know about the very extensive Internet wiretapping of NSA. We didn't know about PRISM, we didn't know about XKeyScore and various other tools. We didn't know about NSA infiltrating to standardization bodies to weaken cryptographic algorithms. And so on.

Commas go inside of the quotes only in American English. It's an illogical convention that was adopted for convenience in the days of physical typesetting. Source1 [homestead.com], source2 [commnet.edu].

The two main criteria for choosing someone to spy on you would be that they are as close to powerless to affect you as possible, and don't share information with anyone more able to exert power on you. Some tiny country I know little about but the name and approximate location is probably going to be the best answer.

If ever there were a poll that just screamed out for a Cowboy Neil option it is this one.
Possible options:
Cowboy Neil already spies on me.
Cowboy Neil spies on the NSA for me.
Cowboy Neil shields me from the NSA.
Cowboy Neil configured TOR for me.

You don't get to pick which state agencies are spying on you. The reality is that it's probably all of the above plus a bunch of other ones that aren't listed.

Going along with some of the comments - you do maybe have a choice in some of the other entities that are spying on you (Google, MSFT, Facebook, etc.) The question is whether you want to avoid all useful Internet services in the interest of your own privacy. Bottom line - if you're accessing something, someone is recording that access and probably selling or commoditizing that recorded data point in a dozen different ways. Possibly/probably including giving or selling that data to foreign and domestic intelligence agencies.

Absolute privacy on the Internet is a zero sum game. The only way to win is to not play.

The enemy of your enemy is your friend. And since Snowden informed us that the US Government is our enemy, I have been more and more fond of Russia. As a die hard patriotic and politically conservative citizen, I've had to admit to myself that my patriotism is for the American people. Not for the government.

And in that vector, Putin has been more beneficial and friendly to the average American in the last few years than the sitting government of the US.

I picked Canada, because as your average boring non-resident, I feel that if Canada felt the need to go to all of the effort to spy on me specifically, then I must be doing something of great significance in the world. This of course is based on the assumption that Canada doesn't have a blanket policy to spy on everyone. We know the US spies on everyone, so being spied on by them isn't so special. Russia I can assume also probably spies on as many people as they can, maybe with a little cold war affinity for spying on Americans, so even though it is a little bad-ass to have Russia's attention, still nothing too special. Same goes for China and Cuba. With the UK, while they probably are a similar case to the US (probably a bit envious), I wouldn't want them spying on me at all. Too much risk of their agents seducing my wife.

Who gains anything from spying on me? Foreign agencies don't have any cause to - I'm not employed in anything remotely resembling defense or espionage, and I've done nothing that would flag me as an enemy of any state (besides make snarky comments about most of them).

So that leaves my own government. I don't have access to anything even marginally classified, not even the newspaper job postings. So I'm not likely to be an enemy spy. I've not made any preparations to do anything against the US government, besides some sarcastic comments about killing all the lawyers (which even a cursory investigation would reveal as a complete joke). I have no association with terrorists, organized crime, or any other opposed groups. Spying on me in particular would be a complete waste of my tax money.

So the only thing that leaves is dragnet spying. And you know what? If they kept it within reasonable limits, that would be fine. But they're literally trying to wiretap the entire planet. Not only is that an unimaginable invasion of privacy, but your signal-to-noise ratio is going to approach 0. I don't care who does it - anyone even interested in doing it is fundamentally working for the side of evil.

It's like the difference between homicide and genocide. You want to kill me? Well, you'd better have a good reason, and if I'm doing anything that would give you a reason I'd also be taking measures to defend myself when it happens. I won't like it, but I can deal with that. But if you want to kill *everyone*? That's just incomparable - nine orders of magnitude doesn't even cover it. Same with spying.

Some govs just like to be able to rewind your digital life if you ever become political or your boss lands in court or you protest or are seen near a protest or gave money to a charity or read the wrong books...
As for tax payers money its win win win, the political leaders get warnings about the press/sources, the contractors get paid to help watch you, the gov agencies get huge new budgets and domestic powers.

The fact that/. would consider conducting such a poll is to me at least in part a reflection of the strikingly apathetic attitude that most people seem to have towards the outrageous conduct of the various national security agencies nowadays. Before 1989 it was something that only those living out their wretched lives in countries like East Germany had to endure, but that was because they lived in a police state. Yet, when it is revealed that our own "democratically elected" governments are now doing the same thing on a massive scale, most people seem blithely unconcerned.

Or does everyone just think/know that our intelligence agencies are rather harmless...

Probably less about your intelligence agencies (or perceptions thereof) and more about your specops boys (or perceptions thereof). If one doesn't set foot in either USA or Canadian territory, one seems a lot more likely to be assassinated by the US than Canada. (Though the recent feats of Furlong [wikipedia.org] and Perry [wikipedia.org] make this a dubious assumption -- Canadians may not do as much killing as Americans, but some of them are certainly very, very good at it.)

That said, if I were doing something that made me think any nation would try to assassinate me, I sure wouldn't bet my life on a lack of information-sharing amongst the UK and any/all former colonies thereof.

Yes - they are (perceived as ) less likely to use information in a dastardly, illegal way, Horton's or no Horton's. Their capabilities and misuses are assumed to be less. It is sort of the same reason I purport to be Canadian when I travel throughout Europe rather than announcing myself as American, which keeps everyone I run across friendly and helpful rather than dismissive or overly guarded.

CSIS is the actual spy agency. Not sure exactly what CSE is, which is a bit unnerving.

On one hand, it seems they didn't come into existence until 2001, under the anti-terrorism act. Great. Who knew about that.On the other reading their bio, it doesn't seem so bad. Crypto, signals collection (which everyone does anyway), consults other government to secure systems against intrusion (which is a good thing), advises government on this sort of stuff for decision making, which is better than politicians just winging it.

Weirdly, seems totally separate from SCIS. An expansion of CSEC, which has been around apparently since signals intercept in WWII.

I am guessing those too nerdy for SCIS go into CSE...:)

CSE *IS* probably monitoring slashdot, but perhaps not at their managers express direction if you know what I mean...

The USA, because they are bound by laws and the constitution. Since they must follow the Bill of Rights, you know they aren't going to spy on you or act on any intelligence (false positive or otherwise) without proper due process.

Other countries' intelligence agencies, on the other hand, will swoop you up in the dead of night from a foreign country and send you off to a prison camp where you will be tortured, or their law enforcement agencies could coerce you into admitting to a crime you didn't commit by threatening to send you off to that prison camp, all in the name of fighting terrorism when really some stooge just wants to check the box next to "case closed." According to my high school social studies teacher, the good ol' USA would never commit such atrocities.

I am assuming that whole post should have been modded up +5 Funny, but for those that don't get the sarcasm it represents I would like to add my two cents to the mix.

Let alone the fact that the good old US of A violates the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention and a whole slew of international and sensible treaties on Human rights and rights in general faster than you'd be able to say porridge, I must also point out the sheer arrogance of many US citizens when they indeed trumpet their nation as the birthplace of anything that's democratic (a Greek word) and free (an old Saxon/Frisian/Germanic/Scandinavian word).

Firstly, the United States are not the only country on the planet that has a Constitution. it might behoove people to remember that (amongst others) the Dutch Unie van Utrecht out of 1579 and the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish served as inspiration for Jefferson et al when they were looking to write their constitution and declaration of independence. So no, the US did not invent humanism, the enlightenment, the notion of an inalienable freedom to believe what you wish and other core things. Those have been around far longer than the US across many cultures on this globe.

Hell, I use a shaving soap from a factory that was started in 1565. My shaving soap is actually older than the US itself.

Secondly, given the levels of poverty, incarceration, the amount of annual executions, the lack of healthcare or even access to education many of your citizens suffer do point in the direction that the USA is actually becoming an impoverished, brutish, oppressive and uncivilized nation. As we all know paranoia, poverty and an unlimited supply of guns for the largest army on the planet are hardly a mix I would call "a jolly good idea".

Having said all that, for those that still don't get the sarcasm of the poster I'm replying to: I do indeed suggest you let the Canadians spy on you. They do seem more civilized than the other options in the poll.

Well, I hate to say this, but while corporations are just greedy entities that seem only care about expansion and profit, not in that order, governments actually should be somewhat ideological in nature.

As such I'd rather have particular governments spy on me. At the moment, I could deal with the Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Swiss, Dutch, possibly maybe the German, Belgian, French and Finnish governments spying on me. As for the rest, I am not so sure.

French DGSE is missing option, and we know it joined the fest [theguardian.com]. Surprisingly, that caused almost no reaction, as french are busy hating their government for many other reasons right now.

I guess Canada spy agency is so super secretive that no one even knows their name! Not even slashdot, whom we all know are held to such a high standard of journalism and research. Unless this is some joke that is whooshing over me right now in regards to CSE....

In a fun related note, I had a friend in college that had his voice mail say; "Hi you've reached CSIS, we are currently not available, but if you leave your shoe size, and your hair colour we will get back to you, thank you!":) I always thought it was funny at any rate.

Idem ditto here. Was spied upon by the BVD, the ( former ) Dutch intelligence service during ye good olde colde warre days. I never noticed - until a law student, for her end-of-studies project, was granted a look into 3 files named by her. She name mine, amongst others, and came out appalled at the detail of what was in there. Great fun, indeed. Not.

That only applies if the government has the same opinions about things that you do, and if it isn't corrupt; both of those are foolish assumptions to make, I think. Oh, and you'd better hope that they don't misinterpret a joke or something; they'll make your life hell, as they did to a few people already.

Me too. Where is the extraterrestrial option? This has the added benefit that if they are spying on me, they probably aren't kidnapping and probing me. I hate when that happens. Spying is much better. [puts tinfoil hat back on]

Because they probably don't care what I did, being a foreign national that doesn't even live there and all that.

I voted Russia for the same reason. I consider a distant foreign land to be far less of a threat to me than the country that I live in and am within easy reach of or all of its close allies who would gladly end-run around the Fourth Amendment for them. It's not like the agencies violating our civil rights care anything for them, so there's no real advantage in them being from nominally "free" states.

China & Russia are relatively hostile to the US spy agencies, so there's little chance of information sharing, and I don't see anything I do in the future as a likely threat to Russia. If Russia spies on me, they'll get bored pretty quickly because I have little to no positive or negative interest in them or their affairs. China, on the other hand, is a future competitor in software or any other industry I might engage in. They might actually care about me at some point.